Author Sofi Oksanen has donated €15,000 to the Finnish branch of Reporters Without Borders to support the organisation’s work to promote freedom of expression.
Oksanan says that democracy is under threat even in Finland because public debate can easily be silenced.
“Some nations have already given a mandate to hate speech by bringing people who use it to parliament, which has helped to normalise discriminatory language” says the award-winning author.
Although Finland ranks highly in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, the organisation says things are getting worse especially in regards to hate speech and other activities aimed at silencing journalists who write about sensitive issues, and with the spread of fake news and disinformation on social media.
“Freedom of expression, a pillar of liberal democracy, is also threatened” Oksanen adds.
Oksanen says she is particularly concerned about abuse received by journalists in Finland, where two out of three have been subjected to hate speech; one in five have been threatened with blackmail and one in six threatened with violence - with the aim of challenging the journalist’s professionalism, or that of their publication, and harming their reputation.
“If the journalist is persuaded to practice self-censorship, the effect will eventually reach the whole nation, because the language used by the press shapes public narrative and the language of every citizen” says Oksanen.
The President of Reporters Without Borders in Finland, Jarmo Mäkelä, says Oksanen provides a much-needed example of how to tackle hate speech, and he called on Finland’s “other thinkers and leaders” to “condemn hate speech with equally clear words.”
